Dubai

Blockchain might still be most famous as the underlying technology of crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin, but 2018 will be the year the technology starts to mature and be implemented across a range of enterprise applications, an industry expert said.

This prediction will be down to two factors, said Arun Khehar, senior vice-president of applications at Oracle Eastern Central Europe, Middle East and Africa. First, blockchain will start to build over 2018 as the push for technical standards starts to yield results. Second, the emergence of blockchain cloud services will help to bridge the skills gap that has until now slowed the development of blockchain.

“Using these ‘as a service’ offerings delivered through the cloud, we will see enterprise IT teams start to develop their own cloud apps. Because of these developments, we predict that blockchain will start to transform a range of business functions and sectors,” he said.

Emerging applications will lead in financial services and supply chains and closely followed by innovations in health care, retail, and the public sector.

Khehar said that Oracle will release it ‘Blockchain Cloud Service’ in the first half of 2018 and the offering will target people wanting to build their own Blockchain application.